Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1887-02-10
Printers, Errors

As class, the manipulators of tyne
MAJ ruthfully be called the best isnd
worst abused men in the world, and
wlthc ut sufficient reason. Very few
outside OF the trade know the difficult
Ties under which they labor or have
even faint conception of the skill.
care and patience required Absolute
correctness is a prime essential to secure
public appreciation. and how very little
Is done IN the way of assistance. Copy"
properly prepared Is a great desidera-
tum and rarely received. That which
Is called good" is often the reverse. II
may be fair to the eye and yet blind to
the sense. The patron does not know
exactly what he needs. III he has any
ideas upon the subject they may be per-
verted ones, and the little smattering
he has of the art tends to lead him
astray and demand impossibilities. His
Judgment has not been trained in
the matter of letters. He knows moth
ing of Justification except that he
believes he has it in the largest sense
to give the printer particular fits" when
an error is found. Why six line pica
and nonpareil cannot be made to chime
like notes of music is beyond his ideas
Of eternal fitness of inanimate matter.
According to his views, it is the most
simple of undertakings to set, make up
and work OFF 100 pages, more or less,
IN the most unreasonably short space Of
time. Before pouring out the walls OF
their wrath upon the head of the printer,
it might be well for men to pause and
consider how much he is to blame.
Somewhere in our desultory reading we
have met with the statement that any
old piece OF Mosaic work containing a
few hundred pieces Is exalted to the
skies and pronounced wonderful. 1t
required patience, no doubt, probably
taste and study, but Carrying out the
drift of the article read) how very little
IN comparison TO the tens and hundreds
of thousands of still more slender and
minute particles the printer is required
to handle to make up paper or book.
Take solid page of the Cabinet as an
example. Itcontains some q, 900 "ems"
or about 81 900 letters This is greatly
more than any Mosaic known. And they
had to be placed without any ehiseling or
sand papering, as could be done in the
delicate work of table, chair or picture
Taking this as a basis, calculation is
easy as to the amount of tyre compos-
itor handles during his hours of daily
labor in distributing and setting. Easy
it is also to conceive how such little
fragments of metal will slip out of
place, how letter or space may be
dropped, word spelled incorrectly, a
point be wrong, how errors will creep
in despite all care-and the generous
public be outraged at the "gross care
lessness and stupidity of the printer"
Errors do occur, we must admit, but
they are fabulously uncommon when
compared to chances of their being
made, and books and papers are monu-
ments to the correctness of the craft,
their swiftness and certainty of touch,
education and never ceasing vigilance.
We write not thus for the craft They
practically know the truth of our words.
But we do write for the multitude OF
outsiders, and with the hope that this
illustration we have given may open
their eyes to the great injustice done
to those who, with their noses in the
space box, T" toll away their lives for the
benefit the world at large. Rounds
Printers Cabinet.